Albert Flamen

Albert Flamen was a Flemish engraver, painter, and tapestry designer. He was active in Paris, where he worked mainly as an illustrator on numerous publications.

Life
Few details about Flamen's life and training are known with certainty. The artist is believed to have been of Flemish descent, but his known activity is documented only in France, where his prints were published in Paris. The most comprehensive recent study of Flamen contends on the basis of biographical data drawn from the Fichier Laborde housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris that in all likelihood he was born some time before 1620. The Netherlands Institute for Art History places his birth date and place at around 1620 in Bruges.

Work
Flamen was a prolific engraver who produced works for a number of prominent patrons including Guillaume Tronson, Advisor to the King, Gilles Foucquet, son of Nicolas Fouquet and Advisor to the King, the Marquis d'Illiers de Chantemelle and Monsieur de Sève, abbot of the Isle and chaplain of the king. These patrons tended to be closely allied to the Royalist cause during the struggles known collectively as "La Fronde".

He added drypoint and burin to his etchings which he executed with a fine, neat and light line, and which offer an overall effect similar to the manner of Wenceslaus Hollar."

Flamen's best-known prints are his French landscape etchings and his studies of both salt-water and fresh-water fish and of birds. He also engraved the illustrations for a number of emblem books, including the anonymous Devises et emblemes d'amour often attributed to him but of which he denied being the author (first published in Paris, 1648), Augustin Chesneau's Orpheus Eucharisticus (Paris, 1657) and Adrien Gambart's La Vie symbolique du bienheureux François de Sales (Paris, 1664). Most of his works were created in series published in small oblong books, typically consisting of 12 prints. The influence of Jacques Callot is clearly discernible. Flamen created also several prints for Jacobus van Merlen, an Antwerp engraver. Flamen is estimated to have created about 625 items, of which perhaps 40% are emblems.

The Rijksmuseum and the British Museum hold extensive collections of his prints. The Louvre Museum (referring to the artist as: Aellert Flamen) has a number of his drawings which consist mainly of studies of animals and a marine drawing.

Flamen also painted a few portraits and produced some designs for the Gobelins Manufactory.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2024